thicker than water
by akaiiko
Summary: Zuko tries to pick up the pieces of Katara. [Zutara; Canon Divergence AU; s03e08 The Puppetmaster; Zutara Month 2017]


**Notes:** f _or zutara month 2017, day one, amongst the fire lilies._

this is a canon divergence au where zuko joined the gaang in ba sing se. in other news i'm still That Bitch™ who reads a perfectly good soft aesthetic prompt and thinks, you know what this needs more of? gothic ruminations on morality and loyalty.

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 **thicker than water**

After, she is too shaken to heal him.

Blood stains his throat and crusts over a thin line where his dao had pressed in. When he cleans the wound he remembers her voice, high and scared like the girl she hasn't been for a year, _no Hama don't hurt him please I'll do anything—_ More than the cold well water beading on his skin chills him.

Villagers had brought them back to the inn. It's the largest building in town. A logical place for everyone to group. They're the new town heroes. Former prisoners had recounted Toph's daring rescue. No one thought to ask how a child brought down a metal door. Sokka herded Katara up the stairs toward a bedroom. Tired, he claimed to anyone who tried to stop them, his sister is so tired. Villagers looked at the tear stained dullness of her eyes and stepped out of the way with murmured thanks.

For Zuko, it's too much like the last town Katara saved. People look at her with thinly veiled worship. If the Spirits allow it he thinks she will save his entire Nation village by village. And by now he knows that if she does the cost will be too high for either of them to bear.

Closing his eyes, he bends over the well and tries to breath through the sudden pain. His pulse thumps in his ears. Quietly he wonders how long it will take before his heartbeat stops reminding him of her tears.

"Zuko?" Sokka's voice has a raw quality to it that hasn't been there since Aang abandoned them.

"How is she?" It's not what he meant to ask. Comes out too hard. Because he'd been there, kneeling in front of her, fingers wiping desperately at the tears streaming down her face. Helpless in the face of her pain. Unable to protect her from the people staring at her or the woman laughing madly into the night or the blood still streaming down his own neck. "How's Katara?"

Silence answers him. Zuko turns around.

Lamplight floods the area, enough to give a golden glow to things and maybe drown out the heavy silver of the full moon above. In it, Sokka looks tired and young and grim. "I don't know. I went to get her some water and when I got back she was gone." Shadows fall in the sudden rage that contorts the other boy's face. "I never should have trusted Hama!"

Somewhere in town, Hama is under lock and key. Awaiting transport come the morning when she'll be stripped of her moon granted strength. Zuko's carefully been avoiding the thought because if he thinks about it, he'll take justice into his own hands. Justice will look like vengeance.

But. "Katara's gone?"

As quickly as the rage flared it now extinguishes. They're just kids. They're not meant for this. Sokka rubs his arm with one hand. "I think she's gone to be alone. Katara doesn't…" Doesn't let people see her break. It's something she and Zuko have in common. "You were the one following them the last few days." Because Zuko hadn't trusted Hama either, with her knowing eyes and her nails digging into his wrist, but he'd trusted her with Katara even less. So he watched Katara and Sokka watched the village. "Is there somewhere she went with Hama? Somewhere she might go now?"

Yes, he knows where Katara would go. "The fire lily meadow," Zuko says. It's an open area with little cover. Katara's exposed, vulnerable, and it doesn't matter that she's the most powerful bender he's seen in his life aside from his sister and the Avatar. Instinctively he walks in the direction of the meadow. After a few paces he realizes that Sokka hasn't followed and he slows. Stops. Turns again and demands, "Aren't you coming?"

"I tried to help her," Sokka says. "I think it's your turn." Zuko doesn't have the patience to ask what that means.

Pivoting on his heel, he breaks into a run that eats up the distance between the village and the meadow. Outside the protective circle of firelight he feels defenseless. It spurs him to go faster, to call up fire that sparks along his tongue, to ignore the thunder of his heartbeat.

Minutes later he breaks out of the treeline. Somehow the sight of her, lonely and hushed and watchful, isn't what he expected. Agni, she looks unreal. Lined with silver and so beautiful it aches.

Zuko eases his pace until he's only a little away from her. She doesn't even turn to face him. "Katara?" he asks. Carefully. Katara flinches then stills. Only now does he wonder if this was a good idea. His tongue feels thick and clumsy in his mouth. The last time they spoke, he almost died, and the time before that they argued. Sokka should have come with him. "Are you…"

"No," she says. Only a syllable but her voice cracks over it anyway. It's got him reaching for his dao before he can stop himself. Ready to send fire and steel at whatever has hurt her.

Forcing himself to calm, he pries his fingers off the handle of his dao and takes a step toward Katara. "Let's go back to the village," he says.

"I can't."

When she says it so simply he feels like he cannot argue. "Okay." Two more steps and he's right next to her. If she will not go then he will stay.

Because he thinks she would not want him to look at her now he looks forward and realizes that what he'd initially taken for shadow is in fact a ring of dead flowers. They stand at the edge of it. Earlier he watched them wring all life from the trees—shattering them from the roots up—but this somehow is worse. Delicate, dry petals rustle in the wind.

A muffled sob comes from his right. Without looking at her, he curls his arm around her shoulders and tugs her toward his body. Katara comes easily. Almost collapses into his side. Hot tears press into his neck and he wraps his other arm around her.

The moon begins to descend. Slowly, so that he doesn't realize it's going until it brushes the edges of the treetops and he feels the slow coming of the dawn.

"No one knows the Southern Water Tribe bending traditions," Katara says. She turns her face so her cheek presses against his chest. Zuko tightens his grip reflexively. "When I was born, there hadn't been a Waterbender in a generation. We never wrote down the styles. I know Northern bending, and Foggy Bottom Swamp bending, and now…" Beneath her touch, his heart beats steady and sure. "But I'll never know Southern bending."

Fire Nation histories dictate that the war came about to enlighten the world. To bring to them new prosperity under benevolent rule. For years now he's known it to be a lie but it's sharper. An ache he knows now will never go away again. Here is Katara, strong and kind and fearless, the last waterbender of the Southern Water Tribe. Grieving for what she has lost. What has been lost to her for her entire life. Perhaps Hama gave her hope. Offered a glimpse of possibility before drenching it in vengeance. But in the end it was always the Fire Nation that brought this about.

Zuko is of a line of kings who took history away from the girl in his arms.

"I'm sorry." Words are not enough. Holding her is not enough. Nothing is ever going to be enough. "I'm sorry, Katara."

Small hands come up to push at his chest. Everything in him says not to let her go but he does. If this is what she needs. But she does not step away, just looks up at him with red rimmed eyes and slides her hand up his chest to his throat til her fingertips meet the blood at his neck. "I'm sorry, too."

Protests die in his throat. They had argued before she went with Hama. It'd been their first real argument since he joined the group in Ba Sing Se. Zuko wishes now that he'd been wrong then.

One of her hands whips out in an elegant, vicious movement. Flowers crumple to the earth as water comes curling up toward her hand. Already it glows blue for healing. "This is what I know now," she says. Muted venom coats her voice but her hands on him are gentle. When they finally drop away he knows that she's healed him.

Agni, he wishes he could heal her as easily. Only. Zuko's eyes widen and he reaches out, catching her hips with his hands and pulling her back into him. Fumblingly he says, "Katara, I—"

"No," she says. "Don't apologize. You almost…" Died. The word doesn't come out and he wonders, for the first time, if the haunted look in her eyes isn't just because of what she's lost.

Even like this, exhausted and tear stained and grieving, she's magnificent.

"Close your eyes," he whispers. Somehow she trusts him enough to do it and he sucks in a shaky breath. Moves his hands to her neck and unties the red ribbon that had replaced her mother's necklace. It means nothing and he lets it drop to the ground with the dead lilies. Reaching into his tunic, he pulls out the blue silk he carries with him always. Ties it around her neck carefully and lets his thumb brush over the polished stone. "Open them."

There's no way of know what she sees when she opens her eyes. Whatever it is has her lower lip trembling. Hesitatingly she touches the stone at her throat. "Zuko…"

Leaning down, he rests his forehead against hers. Wraps his arms around her waist again. "There are prisons everywhere in the Fire Nation. After the Day of Black Sun we'll go to all of them. We'll _find_ the Southern Tribe waterbenders. I promise. It won't always be like this." Like grief, like loss, like memory. "I promise, Katara."

"Okay," she breathes. "Okay."

Calluses rasp against his skin as her strong small hands cup his jaw. Then she surges up, lips crashing into his, artless and wonderful and alive. Kissing sets his blood on fire and it doesn't matter, anymore, that his nightmares will be her tear streaked face as she begged for his life or that he's never going to entirely manage to deserve her. All that matters is that they're here and somehow they're going to save the world.


End file.
